A Blogger's Defense Of Goldman Sachs

From The Voice of Reason, "Defending Goldman Sachs":

His [Greg Smith's Goldman Sachs NY Times] editorial prompts several questions:

1. Why, if Goldman doesn’t care about their customers, do their customers keep coming back for more of Goldman’s services? Why is Goldman growing their customer base so significantly when all they care about are themselves? This is not how businesses grow, and Goldman has been growing and generating huge repeat business.

2. Why stay there for so long if it was so bad?

3. Explain these quotes from the editorial: “Culture was always a vital part of Goldman’s success”. ”I look around today and see no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years” (my emphasis on many). ”But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates….”. Smith worked at Goldman for 12 years, and it sounds like he had a very happy and proud 10 years at least. Has he just had a bad 2 years? If so, who happily and proudly works for a company for 10 years, has an unhappy two, and goes out with a bitter editorial in the New York Times?

4. Why, Greg, did you end your editorial “I hope this will be a wake up call to the Board of Directors”. If that’s what you hoped, and you truly respected the company for 10 of the 12 years you worked there (and apparently paid you over $500k/year on average), and you wanted the best for the fellow employees you left behind as you claim, why didn’t you strongly express your opinions on the inside instead of the outside? The result of your editorial may actually be an implosion at the top, but it may also generate the destruction of valuation of the company for employees, job cuts, reduction in equity held by employees and investors, loss of customers, and more. The editorial was “destructive”, not “constructive”.

5. Why has this company that you vilify ranked in the top 25 companies to work for in the last 5 years (Fortune 100 Best Companies to work for)?

6. Can you please explain the timing of your departure? Is it a coincidence that you left immediately AFTER receiving your 2011 bonus? Did you reach the tipping point in January of 2012, or did you happen to reach it in March, just after you saw the EFTS [electronic funds transfer] of your bonus hit your checking account?